Talking about the "transformation" of the "homogenization" phenomenon of domestic furniture

With the rapid development of China's overall economy, the number of employees in various industries has greatly increased, the number of enterprises has risen sharply, technology has been continuously improved, equipment has been rapidly updated, and service and quality have been rapidly improved. The furniture industry has also ushered in a new round of rapid development. However, the competition in the domestic furniture market has completely entered a hot super-competitive state. After the active economy has promoted the overall development of society, the bottleneck of development has emerged in the fierce competition - product homogeneity. In fact, not only the furniture industry, but also other industries have a common trend: the phenomenon of homogeneity is becoming more and more obvious, and the degree and time of product differentiation are becoming more and more limited. The styles, designs and colors of products produced and sold by different furniture companies are exactly the same, and some companies even have twins in image packaging; in the past, when a company developed a new product or new technology, its new product could operate in the market or even be prosperous for several years. Now, once a company's new product is selling well in the market, a large number of follow-up competitors will flock in within a very short few months, followed by rounds of price wars. As the saying goes, the era of "copycat furniture" is getting more and more intense.

What factors lead to this embarrassing situation? I think the main reasons are as follows:

Comprehensive costs continue to rise, and risks are getting bigger

With the rising costs of raw materials, production and sales, the overall comprehensive costs continue to rise, and the market threshold is getting higher and higher. The break-even point and key value of the regional market where enterprises operate are getting higher and higher, and the risks are getting bigger and bigger. This leads to the continuous improvement of the risk awareness of enterprises. Since enterprises need to invest a lot of money in the early stage to develop a new series of products, and the entire cycle from research and development to market launch is relatively long, and new products may not be successful after they are launched, there is also a certain risk. Small and medium-sized furniture companies dare not and have no capital to take this risk. They would rather follow up and imitate the hot-selling new products of large enterprises (as shown in Figure 1), and make a profit, which has formed a severe market homogeneity phenomenon.

The entry threshold of the furniture industry is too low, and the market situation is turbid

Another main reason is that the entry threshold of the furniture industry is too low: in terms of entrepreneurial capital, some only need hundreds of thousands of yuan to open a furniture factory. If the entrepreneurial capital can reach millions, you can basically get the qualification of some large factories for processing. At the same time, from a technical perspective, enterprises have low requirements for the technical level of their employees. For products such as sofas, swivel chairs, and glass coffee tables, small enterprises only need a few people in a few dozen square meters to process and produce products. In addition, the industry has not yet formed a standard to measure whether an enterprise can enter the threshold of the industry in terms of capital, scale, quality, facilities, etc. Therefore, the low entry threshold has become an important factor in the homogeneity of the industry. In the past few years, the domestic furniture industry was in a period of rapid development and prosperity. Driven by market demand and soaring prices, large and small furniture companies have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. However, many newly-launched small enterprises do not have the functions of independent development, design, marketing, service, reputation, etc., but rely on blindly copying and following the trend to get a share of the pie, which has led to the increasing homogeneity of the entire furniture industry.

"Butterfly Change"-Seeking differentiation to break through the homogeneity situation

In the era of homogeneity, not only the products of my country's furniture industry have become homogeneous, but even technical equipment, marketing management, service strategies, etc. have begun to enter the era of homogeneous competition. When homogeneous competition occurs in products and markets, competition between enterprises often evolves into a "price war". The result of a price war is very cruel and can even lead to a reshuffle of the entire industry. However, how can our furniture companies "transform" from the "homogeneous" silt? This is a major issue related to the future and destiny of the industry, and it is worth the joint efforts and deep reflection of each of our practitioners. Time is running out, and we urgently need to find a breakthrough - we can seek differentiation to get out of the homogeneity dilemma.

Today, when products, marketing, channels, and markets are highly homogeneous, if we do not find a breakthrough in differentiation in the shadow of homogeneity, eliminate the homogeneity of various channels and formulate a "differentiation" strategic policy, and thus embark on the road of differentiated brand building, otherwise our companies are very likely to be washed out in the wave of industry reshuffle. Furniture companies can only break out of the homogeneous situation by improving product quality and service, winning with excellence, and taking their own mid-to-high-end brand route.

In the early stage of design and development, companies need to continuously improve their brand influence, enhance the originality and novelty of their products, strengthen the product's sense of value and extend the product's life cycle. This requires companies to increase their investment in design and development. They can avoid the homogeneity of product design by forming their own professional design team, or by cooperating with colleges, scientific research institutions, and professional design institutions, so as to form a novel and differentiated product line for the company. For example, the L.D. series of products jointly created by Shenzhen Bosen Furniture, a representative enterprise in the south, and Tuopu Furniture Design Company in 2008 have been very popular since the new products were launched, and have become a model for many small and medium-sized enterprises to imitate and follow (as shown in Figure 2). At the same time, enterprises and designers can also develop R&D thinking. Many designers who work in the front line of enterprises should have a deep understanding that traditional single linear design thinking can no longer adapt to the needs of product innovation in the new market environment. It is necessary to break the limitations of traditional thinking and institutional space, expand the scope of design, grasp the design value from a strategic level, and establish a design thinking method for service innovation, so as to form a systematic cognition in the awareness and methods of service value and service needs, and build a new systematic method system - service innovation design, that is, R&D design should not only focus on products, but also pay attention to users, and truly do design innovation from the perspective of service, break tradition, and stand out.

In the production and processing stage, enterprises can improve product quality through multiple procedures such as introducing professional technical talents, updating processing equipment, improving raw material quality, and strengthening product testing, so as to form a high-quality image in the market and consumers, leave a good reputation, lay a solid foundation for the survival and development of the enterprise, and provide reliable guarantees for later sales services. In addition, in the marketing link, it can also assist dealers in taking the brand route by strengthening store design, sales management, talent training, promotion and publicity, etc.

However, the root of differentiation is the core competitiveness of the enterprise, that is, what kind of products the enterprise is good at making. In fact, differentiation is not the same as originality. The most important thing in the manufacturing industry is to make the product well and refined. Therefore, furniture enterprises must accurately position themselves on the road of differentiation and cannot lose sight of the main point. For example, the products produced by a certain enterprise are easy to sell, but another enterprise that produces the same quality, quantity and style of products may not be easy to sell, or this product may be equally popular when placed in other people's shopping malls. This shows that perhaps the differentiation strategies such as business philosophy, corporate culture, credibility, and service functions on the differentiation route are superior.

As we all know, there must be many commonalities in the same industry. Whether it is product design, marketing methods, operating procedures, etc., there will be homogeneity. However, in today's highly homogenized world, especially in the current period when the furniture industry is facing severe tests and challenges, each of our enterprises should establish its own core culture, core products, and core connotations. Others can only imitate the form of products and methods, but their inherent quality and deep cultural heritage cannot be imitated at all. These are the core competitiveness of furniture enterprises seeking differentiation and going out of homogeneity to achieve a real "butterfly change".